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Young Rival chats Interior Light!

A few days ago, I was able to have a chat with the indie rock Canadian band Young Rival where lead singer Aron gave me a in depth look into their brand new record Interior Light. The record only dropped two weeks ago on October 16th and was their first record back after a brief hiatus for the band. In this time, Aron also created a solo record but like Dave Monks talked about in an interview with us it only allowed him to have a new energy for this new record with his main squeeze, Young Rival.

The new record is definitely a new move for the band but it’s a great listen and definitely a great step for this talented trio. Currently you can find them on the road with fellow Canadians Born Ruffians and the promise is made to be back on the road very soon. Find our new one with Aron below and definitely pick up this new record! I will always have a soft spot for Canadian rock, it’s in this little Boston via Montreal’s blood.

To start it off, the three touring essentials you must have while on the road?

I have to have my phone really. The DS is happening, the boys all need to have the DS. I’m pretty easy on tour, I’m pretty easily entertained. I don’t know if there are three things that I travel with.

Then maybe how has this time been going in the states with Born Ruffians, obviously a fellow Canadian band and your record is so new. How has the tour been so far?

How have the shows been so far? Yeah they’ve been great. We’ve been having a lot of fun. We’re all good buddies and traveling together, we’ve been having a great time.

Perfect, and then the new record Interior Light it just came out on the 16th. I know there was a brief hiatus so it’s been about three years since the last record. How do you feel it’s been going over even though it’s so new?

Oh we’re super stoked to kind of get it out there and to start pushing it. The hiatus was interesting in that we were just kind of really dialing in on what we’re doing, trying different writing techniques and really developing songs a lot more than we had ever before in the past. So yeah we’re just really excited to get it out there. Get it rolling and working hard. It’s been going great.

And are they all fresh songs? Are some like from the past few years? How did you go about that writing?

They’re actually quite fresh, yeah. We kind of just made a record that was kind of a contemporary feel for us personally. Yeah, we didn’t really drag too much from old sessions into it. It was just kind of like let’s make a record together and develop some new ideas. Come at this from a different angle and push it.

And do you think because of that, the writing process do you feel it’s changed? Is it one person, more collective? Do you think there was a big change?

The writing process? The writing process changed quite a bit. I ended up doing a solo record not too long ago and I learned a lot about just developing ideas in a studio, how to make an idea really come to fruition and make sense. I feel like oftentimes, a good idea can be lost if the production isn’t right and that can go both ways too. I kind of turned a mediocre idea with production into something that could be very interesting. So I think that in learning more about how to achieve certain dynamics in the studio, we were able to kind of work our demos in a new way where we’d sort of take them home and develop them. Kind of deconstruct them more and put them back together in a way that we had never done in the past. We kind of really worked the material in a way that we hadn’t done previously. So it’s kind of a new way for us to go about writing.

Just kind of reeling back to how you said you did do a solo album. I interviewed Dave Monks recently obviously from Tokyo Police Club also being a Canadian band. He said it was kind of therapeutic to do a solo record. For the ideas that he maybe just didn’t feel fit Tokyo Police Club. Is that how you kind of approached it, as kind of like an outlet? How was that experience for you?

The solo experience?

Yeah, I know he said it was like an outlet for his crazy.

Yeah, for sure. I feel like I kind of did it because I got to a point where I just needed a new outlet for writing because all the kind of projects I was involved in were pretty much all in the bag. Records were done. We were just kind of waiting on release dates and I just kind of took the opportunity and energy at the time. I still felt the need to keep pushing. I was feeling that I needed to write and be creative. I find it hard when there’s not an end in sight to be creative. So with the solo record, I talked to the guys and I kind of wanted to see how they would feel about it and they were into it. So yeah, I just kind of went for it. I learned a ton and I think that learning curve kind of brought a lot to where this new record kind of came together.

Perfect, then maybe considering the brief little break you guys took, do you think it will be something where you’ll be back on tour pretty soon? Maybe even coming back to the states pretty quickly, do you think it’s still going to be a while? Kind of what’s the plan for Young Rival?

I think we’re just going to try to keep touring. We’re going to head over to Europe. We’re going to push this record probably for quite some time. We’ll be writing. I love writing. I really enjoy that aspect of being in a band. It’s probably my favorite aspect. Putting ideas together and just seeing ideas come to fruition, you know. So we’re always writing and trying to put together new ideas but right now, the focus is definitely pushing this record, touring as much as possible.

Perfect, then maybe a soft one to kind of end it off, for you time is obviously a little crazy right now. The first CD or first cassette you can remember buying as a kid then the first concert you can remember going to?

The first like big concert I went to was strangely enough the Weezer reunion when they came back with the Green album and they did pretty much everything off the Blue album. It was amazing. I was in high school and was all about Weezer at that time and the first CD that I bought I think it might have been Stone Temple Pilots Purple. Taking it way back!